History of Kindred in the Southland
Intro Los Angeles is a young city, especially by Kindred standards, that has only recently left its childhood behind to begin a tumultuous adolescence. Yet in a sense there is no better way to describe its past than these three words: God, gold, and glory. The three pillars on which it was built: the hope of missionaries, the dream of gold, and the manufacture of glory. This was also the call that triggered the spark of greed, and hope, within the hearts of white men. This was the call that motivated Europeans the brave the dangers of the ocean, disease, and hostile natives to carve out their own kingdoms in the Americas and sweep aside all opposition. The history of Los Angeles is no different, born of the conflict of Old and New World, writ in blood and ash. The Bay of Smoke The old history of the Los Angeles region is murky. Long before Europeans ever set eyes on the shore, various tribes of Native Americans were known to occupy the area, though almost nothing remains of them. A number of local tribes constructed a settlement in the region, the village of Yang-Na (under what is now the Civic Center), but Spanish settlers destroyed it. History suggests that the natives were a largely peaceful people who did not significantly resist the Spanish, and seemed to accept Christianity readily enough, although the records left behind by conquistadors and missionaries are not exactly reliable on this matter. Yet, archaeological evidence recently uncovered suggests that warfare between tribes was more common than first suspected, and the acceptance of the Spanish may have been less a choice than a necessity. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first white man to see what would one day become Los Angeles, arrived in 1542 by ship and dubbed the region the Bay of Smoke. But it was not for another two hundred and forty years that much would be done with his discovery. Mission de San Gabriel The first true white settlement in the region was the San Gabriel mission founded by Pedro Cambon and Angel Somera in 1771. Although nothing spectacular by any standards, the seed had been planted and from it wicked fruit would grow. At first, the mission was little more than a trading post for Spanish colonists, soldiers, and merchants moving further north or returning to more settled lands in Mexico. By 1777 the mission had grown into a small town (El Pueblo) to meet these needs and, reputedly, the first Indians were baptized here at this time. But religious duties and intentions were soon enough to be swept aside by practical necessity and the human tendency to indulge in vice. Evidence also suggests that a massacre was perpetrated against the locals at this time, although the archaeologists who uncovered the mass graves have not been able to determine who was responsible. European artifacts were found on site, however. The history of the Kindred within Los Angeles is also believed to have begun at this time. In 1782 a Spanish missionary named Father Junipero Serra arrived in El Pueblo. With him came the first missionaries of the Lancea Sanctum. Father Serra was appalled by what he found, condemning the moral conditions and immoral habits of the residence, and launched a campaign against them, though his efforts were largely ignored. The Sanctified conducted a similar campaign, testing the residents and culling sinners from the herd. And yet despite this, or perhaps because of it, Los Angeles continued to grow and prosper, especially when the Mexican government began to issue land grants in California, establishing the first ranchos in the region. Although still only a minor town when compared to the vast wealth of Central and South America, Los Angeles was coming into its own. It would not last. Blood and Gold The era between 1782 and 1842 was probably the calmest sixty years the city had ever, and probably would ever know. Los Angeles continued to grow as more and more ranchers and farmers made their homes here. Merchants and traders continued to push north, ships began to anchor in its harbors, and the arrival of oranges in 1804 created a new, booming industry. Despite two floods in 1811 and 1815 and an Indian revolt in 1810 that followed the damming of the Los Angeles River, the future looked bright. A city council was established in 1812, a school was built in 1817 (though it failed almost immediately), and Santa Monica Bay was becoming a port of call for foreign merchants. But signs that times were changing would not be long in coming. In 1828 the village of Yang-Na was sold to John Groningen, who immediately expelled the last residents and demolished the structures. Mystics warned Groningen that he was angering the spirits of the land, but the warnings were ignored. Perhaps there was something to it. Just three years later plans were made to secularize the missions of California; plans that sparked a change in government, the exile of several prominent Los Angeles citizens, and eventually a minor revolution. Two years later the plan was carried out successfully, although missionaries killed over 100,000 cattle in protest. But the bloodshed (both human and animal) led some to wonder, and the civil war between Northern and Southern California that broke out in 1836 only deepened these doubts. Had the Golden Age passed? Yet in some sense, the Golden Age was only just beginning. Land and cattle may have created Los Angeles, but the City of Angels was made from bricks of gold with blood for mortar. In 1842 gold was discovered in the Placerita Canyon of the Santa Clarita Valley. For California, it was only the tip of the iceberg; for Los Angeles it was the beginning of greatness. Officially recognized as a city but a handful of years earlier, settlers and wildcat miners began to flood into the city. With them came vice and danger, but the wealth they delivered was enough for most to turn a blind eye to these faults. Even the Sanctified found it hard not to glorify in this newfound wealth and the power that came with it. Their hold on Los Angeles, and through it Southern California, was strong. In fact, the Lancea’s leader in L.A., Antonio Huarez, was able to claim the title of Archbishop in 1844, making him the undisputed master of all Kindred within L.A. proper. The Eagle and the Bear Cattle made Los Angeles grow, oranges made Los Angeles prosperous, but gold made it wealthy. But wealth has its own downsides, beyond corruption and sin; it tends to attract attention. Especially the unhealthy kind. The Invictus claims that it first sent scout coteries to California at this time, but evidence for this is sparse at best. But the unknowing ally of the Invictus, the young United States, was moving West. With the cry of Manifest Destiny, war was declared against Mexico in 1846. Even as the U.S. army began its march on Mexico City, American settlers and homesteaders (and secretly Invictus Kindred) traveled to Los Angeles under the banner of John C. Fremont and his troops. His troops took the city easily, but, unwilling to accept abuse at the hands of their conquerors, the locals rose up and shortly forced the Americans back to San Pedro. Reinforcements under Stephen Kearny arrived early in 1847 and after the brief but bloody Battle of the San Gabriel River, Mexican troops were forced to retreat to L.A. Freemont’s troops returned but a few days later, and the citizens of Los Angeles agreed to surrender to him without resistance. American control of Alta California was now complete, and the settlers raised the Bear Flag over their new republic. For the Invictus and the Sanctified, however, the battle was just beginning. By right, the Sanctified considered what was New Spain theirs. It was Sanctified Kindred who had risked their Requiems to establish new outposts and Sanctified Kindred who had ruled these young cities since their birth. It was not a control that they were willing to surrender lightly, especially to these arrogant American vampires. The First Estate had other plans, however, and both the will and the means to implement them. As the Sanctified drew upon, and strengthened, their connections to leaders and religious figures within the Spanish speaking community, the Invictus continued to strengthen its grip on the power structure, co-opting businessmen and lawmakers. Using this power, they pushed Sanctified retainers and pawns from power, culminating in the Land Act of 1852, in which all of the remaining old land grants around Los Angeles were wrested from the original ranchero families and given to American families. It is a testament to this silent warfare, and the tensions that both sides tried to stir up, that L.A.’s murder rate climbed dramatically in 1854 and that numerous protests, marches, riots, and guerrilla battles were conducted by former Mexican citizens. But with their big guns rapidly removed, the entire conflict proved to be academic for the Sanctified. By 1876, with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Pico Canyon Oil Field, Californian wealth and American industrial might had won the night for the First Estate. Los Angeles was now tied to American interests and Invictus-backed secularization, anti-Catholicism, and racism shattered Sanctified praxis. While still a force to be reckoned with, the Lance would take many years to rebuild its support base. By 1879 Archbishop Huarez was forced from power, and a new Prince in the form of Alexander Hunt (an Invictus Elder) sat on the throne of L.A. A Celluloid Noose As young Kindred, particularly Carthians, are fond of saying, the world has changed more in the last hundred years than it did in the previous thousand. This is certainly true in Los Angeles, and the current balance of power between the covenants reflects this. Between 1880 and 1976, the Invictus strengthened its grip on the city through control of key industries and political figures, yet was not able to fully grasp the changes overcoming the city. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Santa Fe line as well as the Santa Monica Pier made travel to the region easy (by mortal standards at least, though some daring neonates attempted it with varying degrees of success). This opened the door. And while the grip of the First Estate tightened – most famously it forced the incorporation of many cities and communities into L.A. through the Owens Valley Water Project in 1905 – the grip could never fully close. The Invictus was slowly being left behind, even if it would be decades before they noticed. Although their power was nearly unassailable, the Invictus also realized that it could not maintain this position forever; the balance was too unstable. The Sanctified were rebuilding their base of operations, and the borders were growing rapidly. Therefore, the First Estate did something almost unprecedented; it actively aided other covenants in establishing themselves in the city. Certainly they maneuvered the others into weaker positions, but the Invictus cannily realized that with only a bit of manipulation it could force both the Circle of the Crone (1891) and the Ordo Dracul (1885) into opposition with the Sanctified. It worked. However, for the brief moment that Los Angeles’ borders were fully open, the Carthian Movement slipped quietly in the door. And like unwelcome guests, they refused to leave. Unlike the other covenants, which the Invictus tried to cultivate as allies or cat’s paws, the Carthians were never officially welcome in the city. Barred from Court and isolated from most centers of power, they were forced to get creative in order to survive. Fortunately, being creative is something that the Carthians do very well. A number of forward-thinking ancillae and ambitious neonates began to sink resources into a new and exciting business: the making of motion pictures. Seen as little more than a fad by most Kindred, and many kine, few really expected this ploy to work, which is probably the only reason the First Estate did not interfere. After 1914, the Carthians laughed last and best. They’ve been laughing ever since. With access to both wealth and power, not to mention powerful tools of propaganda, the Carthians became an established power within the city. At the time few worried what the rabble might do with this newfound power, but the dynamic of Los Angeles had been changed for all time, as events would later prove. The World on Fire It was a heady time to be alive or undead in the 1910s and 20s. Los Angeles had grown large and exciting, a magnet for desperate dreamers and an oasis of wealth and prosperity in the desert. Once again, its residents failed to learn from the past, and the lesson that great heights almost always precede even greater falls. Almost as a portent of things to come, a 1928 study announced that L.A. possessed the highest suicide rate in the country, a dubious distinction that it maintains to this night. Again the city ignored these signs, pushing forward plans to construct an airport (Mines Field), and in 1929 completed construction of the Pacific Stock Exchange. The Great Depression officially began one week later. Depression hit Los Angeles as hard as any other city in America. Businesses closed, fortunes evaporated, and jobs simply vanished. Racial tensions also boiled over and a mass deportation of Mexican laborers was begun. Even so, in a display of astonishing hubris, the city hosted the Tenth Olympic Games in 1932, bringing in some 105,000 spectators. An impressive number, but nothing compared to the massive crowds that events in the East had been known to draw, though still an absolute smorgasbord for local Kindred. As if in punishment, the Long Beach Earthquake and the Mineral Wells Canyon fire claimed over 150 lives and inflicted over $41 million in damage the next year. The darkest chapters were yet to come. In 1936 police were mobilized to try to stop the flood of migrant laborers fleeing the Dust Bowl. Although few records are kept, it is evident that violence broke out on more than one occasion resulting in an unrecorded number of deaths. No official inquiry was ever conducted. 1937 saw the bombing of the home of Clifford Clinton, a man well known for his probes of corrupt city hall politics and crooked cops. This attempt, like the second in 1938, both failed to kill the political crusader. 1938 also saw severe flooding that killed 78 people and inflicted over $100 million in damages. As a result of these combined tragedies, the city’s mayor, Frank Shaw, was removed from office for his connections to various vice rings and, unofficially, for the attempt on Clinton’s life. A decade of decay and pessimism was coming to a head, a fact that Nathanael West grimly painted in his novel Day of the Locust. World War II brought almost everything to a head (especially with the Japanese Internment and Mexican-American Gang War of 1942 as well as the infamous Zoot Suit Riots of 1943). But at the same time, the war benefited Los Angeles greatly. Although it paid a high price in the blood of its sons, Federal dollars poured into the city, revitalizing a shattered economy. Hard times had passed, or so it seemed, and as the war finally ended L.A. emerged once again as a jewel of the West, and a vibrant city of dreams. As memories of world war faded, only to be replaced by tensions of a cold war, the city marched on. Under New Management In a city that had known so much turmoil and tension in the past, Los Angeles seemed more than ready to leave behind decades of depression and war. Industry was booming, wages were rising, and citizens seemed ready to enjoy the fruits of their labors. But even as chaos was calming in the mortal world, tensions within Kindred society were polarizing. Invictus control was still absolute, but cracks were beginning to appear. The First Estate had maintained its control by keeping the other covenants weak and divided, but as the “Golden Age” of the 1950s rolled on things were changing. The Sanctified had recovered their power base, the Dragons and the Acolytes were becoming tired of Invictus games, and the Carthians were growing ever stronger. Tensions grew so high that some even suggested that Invictus plants fanned the anti-Communist attacks on the film industry in order to break the Carthian hold on Hollywood. Things began to come to a head in the 1960s as protest and reform became the words of the day. Even Kindred far from the center could feel that pressure was building, just waiting for the right moment to explode. All through the sixties and early seventies a series of hidden clashes were fought between the vampire cliques of the city. The 1961 Bel Air-Brentwood Fire was blamed on Carthian agitators attempting to flush out Invictus Kindred. The Watts Riots of 1965-66 were also blamed on Carthian Kindred, although the area is actually within the Ordo Dracul’s sphere of influence. A third riot in East L.A. in 1970 (a result of the anti-Vietnam Chicano Moratorium March) was the last major civil disturbance blamed on the Carthians. But if those years had been bad, L.A. hadn’t seen anything yet. In 1976 everything finally exploded, in some cases literally. In that year the old Prince, who had led the Invictus since the 1880s, fell into torpor. For a brief instant, the iron grip of the First Estate faltered; it was an opportunity that no one could pass up. In the early evening hours of July 4th, as citizens across America were celebrating their nation’s 200th birthday, the Anarchs a ragtag group of Unbound and iconoclastic Carthians began to overthrow the rule of the Invictus. Several elders were torpored that night and met their Final Death. As sleeper cells suddenly activated all around the city. It would seem that Nines Rodriguez and his revolutionaries had been plannning this for some time as it all went off like clockwork. After the deed was done, since the Anarchs didn't know shit about how to run a Domain they passed it of to the lesser of the evils, the Carthians. They lobbied to turn L.A. into what they would dubb "The Anarch Freestate" encompassing all of Los Angeles County. While Los Angeles did see many periods of lawlessness as the Carthians ruled from faction to faction, and the Crone and the Ordo Dracul who were happy to be spared by the massive amount of malcontent Kindred, as they were relatively small at the time due to battling the Lancea Sanctum, who wasn't doing so good themselves. The Carthians would rule for a good 2 decades, albeit not as one unanimous body, but several factions ascending to power and getting supplimanted by other factions of the Movement. No Carthian group could agree on how to run the city properly. Under the Carthians who hadn't quite matured during these years, would have Losa Angeles see more governemnts then a bananna republic. This period of infighting left them relatively weak by the summer of 2003 when The First Estate would make it's return. The Homecoming of the Brat Prince Even now, over thirty years since the infamous Coup of ’76, the chaos has not fully faded. The Carthian/Anarchs & Dragon Alliance has grown weak. This is due to alot of the Old Guard, succumbing to torpor & Final Death most likely at the hands of other Carthians during the Old Guard's Carthian Civil War. Unlike their predecessors the New Guard doesn't care to negotiate with an archaic order of mystics, as they view them as anti-theitical to the progression of the Movement. The Invictus has come back to town led by Sebastian LaCroix to reclaim Praxis, and he has succeeded. The Circle of the Crone is not unified enough to control